How to Seduce a Fireman: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance (19 page)

“You’re right. That is strange. Sounds like maybe he had some growing up to do too. Give him a chance.” Jace winked. “Bet’cha Cassie has him eating out of her hand in the span of an hour.”

“I hope you’re right.” Quinn could barely choke out the words.
I hope we get her back so she can give the old man hell.

Arlo finally left, taking Milt’s phone containing pictures of Chris along for evidence. Wolf wiped off the whiteboard. “All right, children. Now that we know who the bad guy is, we don’t need all of this shit.” He glanced at Quinn. “What about Milt? Is he staying?”

Quinn gave the old coot the once-over. To edge him out of the action now would be just cruel. Hell, thanks to him they’d been able to identify Chris. “He’s in.”

Ryder slapped Milt on the shoulder. “Hell, yes. He’s got experience in the security business and everything. He needs to stop eatin’ those pork rinds though. Can you fire a weapon, Milt?”

“Shot a B-B gun once.”

“See?” Ryder winked. “The man’s experienced in firearms too.”

Wolf marched over to Milt, stooped in front of him and aimed a stern expression that made the old guy squirm for a beat. “But can you follow orders without arguing? Because we aren’t going to have time for any drama. Noah’s the best man to head this team. Whatever he says, goes. There will be no back talk. Just action to get my baby sister back—unharmed.”

Milt nodded. “I’m your man. I love Cassie as if she were my granddaughter. Ain’t no one on this earth any sweeter, nor anyone who can throw a tantrum any more comical than her. God, that girl can make me laugh.” He leaned forward and looked Wolf in the eyes. “Now listen, I’ve got a Cutlass V-8 that runs like the wind when you open her up. Has a huge trunk to hold guns and whatever equipment you need.”

“Runs like the wind?” Quinn exploded. “Hell, it couldn’t go over thirty on the way to the hospital last night.”

Milt narrowed his eyes at Quinn. “That’s ʼcause you needed a good, hard talkin’ to, son. I drove like a snail for a reason. Did you good to agonize a bit over what you said to that lovable young woman. Made you face up to the fact your actions have consequences, flashbacks or no. You still have to consider other people’s feelings.” He turned his attentions back to Wolf. “Have no fear. My car will purr at a hundred and ten, don’t you worry about that.”

Wolf stood and grinned in a manner that could only be described as pure evil. “Damn, I like this old motherfucker. Noah, start doing your magic and get a plan organized.” He patted Milt’s back. “Looks like we got our driver right here.”

Noah lowered the movie screen. “I’ve used our location software—”

The station’s alarm went off, and everyone in the room groaned. The dispatcher’s voice sounded loud and clear as she announced the location of the fire. Noah held up his hand. “Remain where you are. I called in six extra people, four from another shift and two from another station to help us out for a couple days. We’re covered. Greg and Eduardo will be in charge while we go after Cassie.”

“Chris won’t expect me to know the address of his warehouse.” Quinn glared at Ryder. “I asked you this before. Need a gun and a knife. I can be in and out in a few minutes. He’ll be dead and Cassie will be with me.” He stood and paced the room, nerves crawling up and down his skin like ants. “I can’t sit through another long session of listing facts and figures and making damn charts.” His hands opening and closing. “I need to get to Cassie!”

Wolf stood, puffed out like a cobra ready to attack. “Sit. The fuck. Down. You think I don’t feel the same way? You think Jace and I don’t want to go to this warehouse, half-cocked, charge in and maybe make a helluva mess of things? Maybe get our Cassie killed in the bargain? We’ve got a hostage situation here. Forget that it’s Cassie. Think only of the hostage. The hostage is our mission. And our mission will succeed.”

The two men stood and glared at each other for several tense minutes.

“You know I’m getting damned tired of you ordering me around. Fuck all, man, you are not my big brother.”

Wolf showcased that evil smirk he had. “I will be once you marry my sister. Think about it. A good, sound plan. Well executed. Smoothly and successfully achieved.”

Quinn evaluated what Wolf said, found it sound and sat.
Damn, I’m so tired of fighting everyone.

Noah popped open another soda. “Like I was getting ready to say, I’ve already entered the address to Chris’s warehouse.” He punched a couple of buttons and the screen filled with the image of the brick building, deserted by all appearances, with boarded-up windows, and located in a rough-looking neighborhood.

As Noah tapped a directional key, they scanned the three-hundred-sixty degree view of the building. “Barclay, why don’t you work on the best and quickest route to get us there since you’re more familiar with that area? And the fastest damn route out, preferably open highway where Milt can show us what that Cutlass of his can do in case we’re followed.”

“There won’t be anyone left to follow us,” Wolf stated.

Ryder nodded in agreement. “In and out. Clean kills. Boom. Done.”

Milt swallowed so loud everyone in the room had to have heard him.

Quinn, who’d finally bought into the wisdom of Noah’s detailed planning, rested his elbows on his thighs and dipped his head to peer into Milt’s eyes. “You going to be okay with this?”

“I…” The old man’s face paled.

“You’ll probably be in the car the whole time, keeping the engine running. Jace will be with you, too, unless we signal him for help. But I don’t suspect we’ll need him. Between the five of us in and around the building, we’ll be one hell of a surprise.”

Milt nodded. “Asshole kicked Killer. Made him cry.”

Ryder glanced up from the list of weapons and ammo he was compiling. “I’ll make sure he never kicks another dog, buddy.”

One by one, ideas were shared, discarded, improved upon and written on the whiteboard. Soon Ryder had the list of equipment they’d need. Some was readily available. The rest, Quinn procured with a call to his dad, who asked for thirty minutes to arrange a pickup spot.

Barclay and Ryder took off to do some recon of the building and the neighborhood. They were to take note of any security cameras. Depending on the foot and car traffic, Ryder would install some listening devices and a couple of cameras of their own. Signals were arranged. Meeting places planned. Jobs assigned according to everyone’s past military experience and training.

Quinn, Wolf, Jace, Noah, Barclay, Ryder and Milt had dubbed themselves the Unholy Seven—and damned if they wouldn’t be.

Cassie’s nose wrinkled at the putrid odor of something decaying as she slowly woke up. Where the heck was she? This didn’t smell like a hospital. The room was totally dark. Was she in the MRI tube? Shouldn’t there be some mechanical noise?

A few men talked excitedly in another room, almost as if they were playing video games. One raspy voice was that of the nurse. Nothing made sense. What the heck was going on? She tried to roll over, but couldn’t. Raising her head from the pillow, she struggled only to find her arms and ankles were tied to the bed.

The door flew open and a bare bulb snapped on overhead. Two men walked in. They looked enough alike to be brothers.

“So, you finally woke up? The buzzer I put under your pillow works great. As soon as the weight of your head lifts, the control board in my game room lights up.”

“You’re my nurse. Jimmy. Where am I?”

He pulled a chrome handgun from the back of his jeans. “You’re one bullet from hell, Cassie Wolford.” His other hand cupped her breast and she nearly vomited at his touch. “At least after I’m through playing with you.” His laugh was maniacal. “What do you say I tear off this nightgown and take a selfie of my hand on your bare boob? I’ll send it to your boyfriend, and he’ll go freaking insane.”

Cassie tilted her head to get a better look at him. He’d changed out of his turtleneck and scrubs into a t-shirt and baggie jeans. There were thick scars around his neck. “Aren’t you T-Bone, Quinn’s friend?” He’d told her about finding his only remaining team member hanging by a chain in a deserted warehouse. Why would he turn against Quinn?

He pressed the barrel of his gun under her chin. “I was never his friend.
Never
. Being head of the team in Chile should have been my job. DB had promised it to me. My security clearance was higher. My experience more extensive. But, no, Buck Gallagher saw to it that the position went to his son. Thought the undercover involvement would make a man out of him.”

T-Bone snorted. “I’ll confess the little shit did a decent job. Learned a lot of good intel. Too much, in fact. I had to keep Renata busy humping the kid so I could go about my business. Poor schmuck insisted the mole was back in DC.” He ran his tongue up her cheek, and she shuddered. “Hell, one of them was me all the time.”

The other guy slipped his hand under her nightgown, up her leg. “Chris, why don’t we just go ahead and do her? We can videotape each other. Aw, fuck, she ain’t got no hair. She shaves her cunt. What a fuckin’ turn-on.” His finger stroked over her and if she could have gotten her hands on him, she’d have choked him until his eyes bulged out.

“Not now. Maybe tomorrow, Kyle, after the younger two leave.”

Chris produced a hypodermic needle. “You’re going to have a long night without something to help you sleep.”

Kyle kept touching her and peering at her privates as if he was fascinated by it. He rubbed his obvious erection. “She’s a no-good cunt. Let me have her now.”

If Chris put her to sleep again, what was to keep horny Kyle from coming in here and doing things to her? She had to make a plea.

“No, you’ll make me sick and then I won’t be of any use to you.” She didn’t want his dirty hands giving her an injection. Here she lay, tied up on some filthy mattress, in a deserted building with a gun pressed to her neck and she was worried about someone needing to wash his hands. What about the hand that kept stroking her intimately? Her skin started to crawl, and she fought the urge to throw up. She hadn’t wanted any man to touch her there except Quinn.

Chris slipped the gun into the waistband of his jeans before he tore open a packaged alcohol wipe with his teeth and rubbed the material over the inside bend of her elbow. Struggling was no use with both her arms and ankles tied to the bed with ropes.

“It’s not that potent. Just a small amount of Lorazepam, enough to put you out for a few hours so I don’t have to keep checking on you.” There was a prick and a slight burning where he injected the drug.

“You’ll be out for three or four hours while my brothers and I play the latest Skylanders SWAT Force game. We like the volume high, so we can get the game’s full effect. That’s one nice thing about this part of town. No one bothers us if we make a little racket.”

He ran his tongue up her face again and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “See how thoughtful I am to put you to sleep so you don’t hear the noise?” He cupped her breast again and pinched her nipple to the point of pain.

She refused to show any response.

“By the time you wake up, I’ll be ready for a little diversion. Think I’ll take that selfie for Quinn. Kyle and I might both have to screw you a few times before I kill you.” He laughed. “Yeah, set up a camera and record it for Quinn to watch.

I never got to do that when I screwed Renata. We had this little signal though. If Quinn spent the night, she’d sing to him in the mornings. Then I’d know not to come knocking at her door. Tell me, does he still mourn her?”

Cassie’s eyelids grew heavy and her thinking fuzzy. She imagined he talked about Montana and taking her there so he could keep torturing Quinn with pictures of them together. If this whack-job thought he could hold her captive and live to tell about it, he’d never met a Wolford before. He couldn’t keep her drugged all the time. The first chance she got she’d show him what the ugly in the word bitch meant. Okay, so she was never good at spelling, but she knew how to crush a man’s balls.

****

Milt could barely close the lid to his trunk. “Good God A-mighty, I haven’t seen this many weapons since that movie with Bruce Willis, that weird John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. Man, she’s one hot dame.”

Quinn helped him slam the lid. “You mean ‘Red’? Cassie and I loved both those movies. She keeps telling me to shave my head like Bruce.” Just the mention of her name and all the things they’d done together, everyday things like jogging, watching movies and texting like crazy, reminded him of happy times. How could he have loved her so much and never realized it?

Milt stepped closer and glanced at the rest of the guys before he spoke. “I’m a little worried about you.”

“How so?”

“What if you have one of those flashbacks in the middle of all this?” The old man flung his hand in the direction of the men separating equipment into piles. “You got any techniques you use?” Quinn looked away and shook his head. “Melvin, that’s my brother who got them, used to use a focal point when he felt one coming on. Sometimes they hit him so fast he didn’t have time to do anything, but when he felt the shakes and the sweats start, he’d relive the high-school championship basketball game. The other team was one point ahead, and Melvin had the ball. He dribbled down the court, glanced at the clock and saw three seconds left in the game. Three seconds, man. He was never the best at long shots. He was better under the rim, but his team needed him. So he made the long shot and the basket and won the game. He relived that moment time and time again through a helluva lot of flashbacks.”

Does this old man know how freakin’ much I hate basketball?

“If I was you,” Milt tapped Quinn’s stomach, “I’d think about the day Cassie unloaded your U-Haul and got ahold of your saxophone. If that wasn’t a day and a half.” He snorted. “Her making that awful racket and every dog in the apartment complex howling like it was a full moon. Think on that, son. Make it your focal point. Hang on to it for dear life until the flashback passes.”

Quinn stared at the man. God, he loved the old fart. He could get on a person’s nerves in a heartbeat, but he cared about people. “Thank you, sir, I’ll try my best to do that.”

“Good boy. Good boy. I gotta tell you, for a retiree whose high point of the day is spying on the neighbors, this night is one kick in the ass.” Milt practically bounced on his sandaled feet.

“You’ll have to check with Noah for instructions on how much of this you can share with anyone. He’ll debrief you on this entire mission.”

Milt’s head bobbed. “Top secret, huh?”

Quinn glanced over his shoulder at the rough-looking man who’d delivered the arms and ammo. There was something half creepy about the dude. “Yeah, Milt, top secret. This whole operation might be labeled that way.”

Like how did Quinn’s dad know about Barclay’s beach cottages? Only his closest friends at the station were aware Barclay had recently inherited the property from his uncle. His family legacy was five small, beachside bungalows too dilapidated to rent to tourists. Yet Quinn’s dad was familiar with these cabins in Indian Rocks Beach, not far from the Intracoastal Waterway bridge that became the well-traveled highway into Tampa. Still, Quinn had to admit, Barclay’s private property, hidden among palms of various sizes, was the ideal place to make the switch of equipment.

An hour earlier, when the muscled, silent man had opened the back doors of a black van marked “Sam’s Catering”, every ex-military man on the team acted like they’d gotten an instant woody. Words of “come to poppa,” or “I’m in love,” and “fuck me running” floated in the dark night. There were cases of guns, infra-red goggles, mobile communication devices, hand grenades as well as 30mm grenades, M320 grenade launchers mounted on M4 carbines, Mk48 machine guns, ammo, body armor, and both magazine and grenade pouches.

Now that the cases were either loaded into Milt’s trunk or stacked on the ground to divide between the men, the driver of the black van reached across the front seat and retrieved a clipboard. “Which one of you gentlemen is Quinn Gallagher?”

“That would be me.” He moved to stand in front of the stranger.

“According to my instructions, I need both you and retired Major Noah Steele to sign these forms.” Quinn scrawled his name before handing the clipboard to Noah, and who the hell knew he’d been a Major? Noah had certainly kept that bit of information to himself. Once Noah signed, he handed the pages back to the man with a military bearing.

“Here’s an envelope for each of you.” He saluted them both. “Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure.” Whoever he was hopped in his van and drove off.

Noah tore open his manila envelope and removed the thick set of papers. Using a flashlight, he scanned the pages. “Well, hell, guys, looks like we are now a temporary team of mercenaries, operating under the name Steele and Associates, assigned by the US Government to arrest one Christopher Mason and any of his accomplices for espionage, treason and kidnapping. We are authorized to use lethal force, if necessary.” A round of “hoo-rahs” and “fuckin’ A’s” were uttered.

“Hell, we even get paid, and damn fine, too, thanks to these enclosed checks from a DB Enterprises Incorporated account at Bank of America.” Noah turned to Quinn. “How did your dad know the name of every man going on this mission? Even Milt?”

“Hell, beats me.”
I’m beginning to feel like he’s looking over my shoulder every freaking minute of the day.

Noah stared at him for a few seconds. “According to these orders, anything we do from this point out is legal as shit on a shingle.” He held a card. “For all fatalities, we are to call this number for pickup. We’re to use the same number if there are any survivors, although it is not advised there be any. They are our clean-up crew.”

“They’ve ordered a kill mission.” Wolf exchanged looks with Noah.

Ryder elbowed Quinn. “Damn, your old man must carry some heavy influence. Open your envelope and tell us what yours says.”

Quinn broke the seal and removed two sheets of paper. The first was handwritten. Short and concise. “Forgive me. According to your mother, I’ve been a pompous fool. And we both know the woman is never wrong. Stay safe so I have a chance to make things right.” On the second sheet, in a broad stroke of a Sharpie was one word: “Grandchildren!”

“Yeah, well I’ve got another word for you, buddy.” Wolf elbowed him. “Wedding. You knock up my sister before you put a wedding band on her finger and I’ll slice off your effin’ balls.”

The whole team was shining penlights over Quinn’s shoulder, laughing at the one-word command and Wolf’s reaction to it.

“Pompous ass never did have an ounce of patience.” Still, the thought of Cassie carrying his child wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe in a year or two. For now, he’d count himself the luckiest guy alive to cover her heart-shaped face with kisses and tell her how precious she was to him. This mission had to succeed or both of their lives would end in one manner or another.

Ryder and Jace took the dark-blue van Ryder kept equipped with surveillance monitors for use on his second job. Once in place up the street from the warehouse, plans were for Milt to exit the Cutlass and join Jace to monitor all audio and visual communication.

Following the van, Milt drove the Cutlass into Tampa with Wolf riding shotgun. Noah, Quinn and Barclay took the backseat.

Once they eased their vehicles into place, they put on their night-vision goggles and mobile communication devices. Milt shook each man’s hand before he hopped into the van with Jace.

With quiet efficiency, the rest of the team slipped into their body armor and slung ammo and grenade pouches around their necks. Each took an M4 carbine with grenade launchers attached and an Mk48 machine gun. Noah did a final check of his own sniper rifle mounted with an infra-red scope.

While checking the volumes on everyone’s mobile communication earpieces, Jace told them that microphones Ryder had set up earlier indicated four occupants of the building were busy playing a video game. “Sounds like Chris is whipping everyone’s ass.”

“Wait until he finds out what it’s like to really get his ass whipped.” Wolf reached for his machine gun, looping belts of ammo over his shoulders.

Noah took off on a silent run, his objective to take a sniper position on the roof of the building across the street. Barclay, the Ice Man, who had the reputation of moving like a ghost, would enter the building before anyone else. Ryder was going in as point man, followed by Wolf. Once Barclay, Ryder and Wolf gave Quinn the “all clear” signal—three taps to their mouthpiece—he was scaling the side of the building after his woman. By prior agreement, no vocal communication would take place to alert Chris or his cohorts. The three inside guys would take care of any occupants in the building. Noah would take out any who tried to exit the building and run. And, come hell or high water, Quinn would rescue Cassie.